QoSMOS: cross-layer QoS architecture for wireless multimedia sensor networks

Wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSNs), having inherent features and limited resources, require new quality of service (QoS) protocols for real-time and multimedia applications. In this paper, we present a cross-layer QoS architecture (QoSMOS), that unifies network and link layers into a single communication module for QoS provisioning. Based on QoSMOS architecture, we developed an example reference cross-layer protocol, named cross-layer communication protocol (XLCP), enabling scalable service differentiation in WMSNs. Comprehensive analysis of simulation results indicate that the proposed architecture successfully differentiates service classes in terms of soft delay, reliability and throughput domains. A comparative analysis of XLCP and its counterparts is also given to show the superiority of the cross-layer protocol.